


a quantitative analysis of interpersonal relationships

by dankaroo



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-13 22:51:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10523568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dankaroo/pseuds/dankaroo
Summary: Or, an examination of what Kara Danvers really means to Lena Luthor. A Lena-centric character study, with a little bit of plot and a lot bit of Supercorp.





	

It occurs to her, as she sits with a cup of coffee in hand across from Kara, that she has stopped keeping track of how many interactions they’ve had.  
  
Lena Luthor is good at many things — math and chess and public speaking, for starters — but making friends? Not one of them. Attending an all-girls’ boarding school for the better part of a decade taught her about the intricacies of social politics the hard way, which invariably meant she’d had to define certain rules for herself to operate within.

  1. Build advantageous relationships that will improve social standing and/or probability of future success.
  2. Get everything you need from them before they figure out they don’t really like you all that much and ditch you.
  3. The quicker you can do this, the better.



The rules evolved into categorizing everyone she meets into the number of times they interact before never talking again. Dates are always, always one. Potential friends, met at tech conferences or galas, start canceling plans around four, stop answering her calls around seven. Assistants quit after ten but before fifteen. Those who care more stay longer, but ultimately everyone leaves. The sting of rejection lessens each time; at some point, Lena had convinced herself it was nice to have a baseline to gauge how long she’d have to deal with someone. She can quantify her relationship with every person in her life, with only one exception. Kara Danvers. Kara, who had started as a strategic business ally at _one,_ then became a friend at _seven,_ then best friend at _sixteen,_ then—  
  
“Lena?”  
  
A hand, feather-light down her left forearm, snaps her out of her musings. She shakes her head, blinking a few times to bring herself to the present. “Hmm?”  
  
“Are you okay? You kinda went blank on me there for a second.” Kara’s eyebrows are knit in genuine concern (which Lena couldn’t quite place until _twenty-two_ , when Kara came by with donuts after the circus of media coverage of Lillian’s trial. And now that she’s thinking about it, that is the last time she can remember keeping count.) Lena gives her friend a tight smile and Kara’s hand returns to her lap. Lena shifts uncomfortably in her seat. Her eyes drift over the assortment of plates and cups littering their table before settling on soft blue eyes behind tortoise-shell glasses.  
  
“I’m just shocked that you could clean out half the bakery and still manage to polish off your latte.” A mischievous smirk dissipates the tension that began to grow and Kara adjusts her glasses and glances down at her hands with a faint blush. There’s a small protest of “I was _hungry_ ” and then conversation is back to normal. Well, as normal as conversation can be between the CEO of a Fortune-500 company who happens to be the sister of a homicidal, xenophobic maniac and a bona fide superhero who moonlights as a reporter. “So where were we?”  
  
“You said Supergirl caught you mid-air. That must’ve been, um, really scary,” Kara says.  
  
“I knew she’d come, but,” there’s a beat of silence and then she admits, “it was.”  
  
Kara suddenly finds her left thumbnail to be the most interesting thing in the world, having the decency to look away as she lies to her best friend. “I’m glad you— she’d really appreciate that you have so much trust in her.” She adjusts her glasses again and frowns, scrunching her nose as if the avoidance of the truth leaves a bad taste in her mouth.  
  
Lena feels a pang of sadness in her chest but holds her gaze on the alien, the superhero, the woman, her friend that has saved her life on multiple occasions. She thought for a moment that Kara might reveal her secret identity this time, considering how close they’d been when Lena was literally cradled in her arms. And surely Kara knows that Lena knows, anyway? She doesn’t want to push the issue, but… she wishes Kara would show her that her trust is reciprocated, that she is completely confident in Lena’s ability to keep her secret. Despite her own feelings being hurt, Lena plays none-the-wiser to Kara’s discomfort with practiced, polite Luthor ease and quirks her eyebrow. “Well, I really appreciate that she didn’t let me splat across the pavement.” That earns a meek smile from Kara, who looks up at her. Lena sees the internal battle between honesty and secrecy raging behind Kara’s eyes, and Kara hears the steady _wuh-thump_ of Lena’s heart speed up as they study each other. Kara opens her mouth as if to say something, Lena leans forward because _finally they are going to talk about this_ , and Kara takes a deep breath.  
  
The spell they had cast over each other breaks at the harsh buzz of Kara’s phone vibrating on the wood table between them. Lena glances out of the corner of her eye at the name illuminating Kara’s phone. Damn you, Alex Danvers.  
  
“I need to go, I’m so sorry.” Kara frantically gathers her coat and pulls out a few notes from her wallet as her phone continues to buzz. “It’s a family thing, I promise I’ll call you tomorrow, and maybe we can have dinner together since our lunches always get cut short, and I hope this is enough to cover everything, let me know if it’s not, and—”  
  
“Kara, please,” Lena cuts off her rambling. “Don’t be silly, it’s on me.” As Kara starts to argue, she counters, “As a thank you. For letting me borrow Supergirl while you were out to coffee with her.” Kara smiles, feeling a little sheepish, acknowledging the transparency of her excuse.  
  
“Next time’s on me, then,” Kara compromises, and Lena waves her off as she answers her phone with an annoyed, “Hello? Yeah, no, I was just— o _kay_ , I’ll be right there.”  
  
Lena sits alone for another half hour before she pays the bill and heads back to her office.  
  
It’s only after three business meetings, a dozen phone calls, and sixteen e-mails that she feels satisfied with the number _thirty-four_. Which, considering how long they’ve been friends, is pretty good, right? Seeing each other once a week is a normal thing that people that are friends do. Right? She closes her laptop, packs her bag, and turns in for the evening feeling a little giddy.

As she falls asleep that night, Lena thinks maybe she’s not so bad at the making friends thing after all. Maybe there’s hope for her yet.

* * *

Lena wakes the next morning to a text message that reads, _Sorry again for running out on you. Dinner tonight?_ She’s surprised her friend’s up before seven, having pegged her as a sleep-’til-noon-on-the-weekends kind of person, and is shocked to find that the message was actually sent at 4:28am. Maybe she doesn’t sleep at all, she surmises, and switches on the news as she begins her morning routine. At the latest headline praising Supergirl for preventing a warehouse ceiling from collapsing on its night shift workers, Lena smiles to herself. That explains that, then.  
  
_7pm? I’ll send a driver to your place._  
  
The morning drags on. She doesn’t receive a reply until well into the afternoon, and she bites her lower lip when her phone dings with a notification that she’s sure is a cancellation. Except, it’s not. It’s a smiley face, and then another message comes in while her phone’s unlocked: _can’t wait!!!_  
  
Lena exhales a breath she didn’t realize she was holding, and the rest of her day is uneventful, especially for a Saturday. By the time 7 rolls around, she’s buzzing with excitement and trying to contain it by fixing her hair for the sixth time.  
  
_Thirty-five_ is the longest they’ve ever spent together. Kara’s phone doesn’t ring a single time, and so they close out the restaurant after hours of talking about feeling out of place as the adopted kid, overprotective older siblings, living up to a family name. Lena knew beforehand that they had some things in common, but she never expected that someone else could _get it_ , what it was like to have to learn to feel normal in your own home. Or what it was like to be constantly compared to someone with whom you had nothing in common, except familial ties and the same occupation. Lena feels so free at this revelation, which makes her feel bold, and so when she asks Kara if she wants to go to the exclusive bar down the street for a drink, and Kara declines because she has to work tomorrow even though it’s Sunday, Lena is nothing less than humiliated.  
  
She saves face, of course, because that’s what she’s been taught to do her whole life. The only indication that she’s affected at all is that her toothy, beaming smile fades into a thin one. She manages to force out an, “Alright then, have a good night, Kara. Don’t work too hard.” Kara panics a little, noting the subtle change in demeanor, but still moves in for a hug that Lena accepts stiffly. Lena offers to drop her home to keep up the charade that she doesn’t know Kara could just fly herself home, but she prays that Kara will decline.  
  
Which she does. “Oh, it’s alright, I’m out of the way for you, it’s really no trouble,” Kara says, and Lena bids her goodnight before instructing her driver to get her home, _now_. She barely makes it through the front door of her apartment before the tears well in her eyes, and she throws herself on her bed and cries.  
  
When she wakes up with last night’s mascara running down her cheeks, she thinks about how she carried on the night before and wants to crawl into her blankets and let the earth swallow her whole. She’s the CEO of a company, she works practically every weekend herself; so why was it so surprising to her the Kara had to go in on a weekend? It dawns on her suddenly that it wasn’t the working part that bothered her, it was the thought that Kara had somewhere else to be that _wasn’t with her_.  
  
An ugly thought creeps into her head that she can’t shake, and she spends the entire rest of her weekend thinking about how she was wrong, before — how she really is terrible at making friends, and how she’s even worse at keeping them.

* * *

More than a week has passed since she had dinner with Kara and Lena has felt lousy every second of it. Kara’s been messaging her once, then twice, then several times a day, but Lena deletes them without even opening them. She’s not the kind of woman that accepts pity texts after a flat-out rejection. She’s about to call for her assistant to put in an order for lunch when her office door bursts open and Kara is standing in the middle of the room with her brows pulled together and lips scowling. Lena stands to face the intruder. _Thirty-six_.  
  
“You’re avoiding me,” Kara accuses, finger pointed at the sharply dressed woman behind the desk.  Before Lena can say anything to defend herself, Kara continues. “You haven’t responded to any text I sent, which was a lot by the way, and I get needing space but you can’t just ignore me and not tell me why.”  
  
Lena clears her throat. Her assistant backs out of the office, closing the doors in her wake. Kara looks embarrassed at her outburst only for a second, but then recovers by crossing her arms across her chest. “Well?”  
  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lena turns up her nose and faces her window. She can’t bare to face Kara when she can feel the insecurity and shame bubbling in her chest, threatening to spill out at any moment. Kara softens her approach when she realizes Lena’s only building her walls higher. She drops her hands to her sides and sticks them in the pockets of her chinos.  
  
“Lena, please look at me.” It’s uncomfortable then, because their dynamic has shifted abruptly from the oh-so-familiar offense-defense she’s used to and… she’s not sure what to call it, actually. Compromise? Lena straightens her back to gain some composure before turning around. This time she’s the one with her arms crossed, but she can’t seem to bring herself to look Kara in the eye. “What’s this all about? What did I do to upset you so much that you haven’t talked to me for a whole week?”  
  
Lena’s jaw clenches as she decides how to begin. “You don’t like spending time with me.” Her eyes narrow as she glances at the person in front of her, ready to cut the blonde woman down with sharp insults should the need arise. It doesn’t; Lena finds Kara’s eyes are soft and reassuring. She had been expecting anger or at least defensiveness, but all she sees instead is warmth.  
  
“Of _course_ I like spending time with you, Lena. You’re my friend. I care about you.” Lena’s heart skips a beat at the admission, because it’s honestly the first time someone has told her that without an ulterior motive and she’s not sure what to do with that information. Kara steps closer to her. Lena’s chin trembles a little as she looks at the ground. “I’m sorry I upset you. But being friends isn’t about being available for each other all the time, it’s— it means making the most out of the time you have together, which I think we have been, don’t you? And I don’t want to lose you, so please don’t ignore me anymore. I’ll be better about telling you when I’m busy, and you tell me when I’ve upset you instead of just not talking to me.” Lena’s eyes are brimming with tears when they meet Kara’s. “Oh, Lena,” she says, and she moves behind the desk to wrap her friend in a hug. Kara holds her for half a minute before Lena circles her arms around Kara’s back, and they stand like that until Lena sniffles quietly. Kara pulls back and tucks a hair that’s fallen from Lena’s slick ponytail behind her ear. She leans in, and Lena closes her eyes as Kara places a soft kiss between her eyebrows. “There,” she says, “all better.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Lena says. She feels stupid and awkward and childish. “I— Thank you.”  
  
Kara smiles. “Hey, it’s okay.”  
  
Lena thinks if she can make a friend like Kara Danvers, then maybe she’s doing okay. Maybe she can learn to make more.

* * *

Since then, they make an effort to see each other at least twice a week, which turns into once a day, even if for only a minute. Kara drops by around lunch with a coffee and usually leaves a cute note alongside it with a wink and a smile before letting Lena get back to her conference call. Sometimes Lena beats her to the punch, and shows up at Kara’s place with a couple drinks and a selection of pastries. It’s rare because Lena’s so busy, but when it happens, Kara feels her heart swell.  
  
At _sixty-seven_ , the note Kara leaves just says _Movie night?_ and Lena smiles as she sips her mocha.  
  
_Sixty-eight_ finds them sitting on Kara’s couch in front of her TV, some overacted period drama playing on the screen. Lena’s feet are curled under her and she’s leaning her head on Kara’s shoulder. Kara has one arm around her friend, the other in her lap, and her feet propped on the coffee table. When the protagonist confesses her undying love for her best friend’s brother’s servant, Lena turns her head to find Kara is already looking at her. Kara’s smiling gently, and they both lean forward as Kara presses her lips to her best friend’s hairline. When she pulls away, Lena’s already leaning in again. Their lips touch softly, and then not so softly. It’s brief, but when they turn to finish the movie, they’re wearing matching grins.  
  
A week later, _seventy-four_ is going wonderfully. They’re on the couch, and then they’re in Kara’s room, and then Kara’s back is on her bed, and Lena’s mouth is on Kara’s neck, and Kara’s hands are on Lena’s hips, and Lena’s hands are under Kara’s shirt, and Lena’s actions seem pretty confident but her heart’s all over the place. Kara can tell the difference between excitement nervousness and fear nervousness, and to be frank, Lena’s a wreck. Kara takes Lena’s hands in hers and threads their fingers together.  
  
“Hey. We don’t, uh, we don’t have to do that, if you’re not ready yet.”  
  
Lena’s entire body seems to relax at that, and she kisses Kara on the mouth a few more times before they both settle into each other. Lena lays with her head on Kara’s chest, arm slung across her waist and hand warm on Kara’s hip. Kara plays with the thick, dark strands of hair at the nape of Lena’s neck.  
  
“I love you,” Lena’s voice is small, like if she says it too loud this perfect moment will shatter and she’ll wake up and realize it’s all been a dream. Kara tightens her grip, and pulls Lena impossibly closer.  
  
Kara doesn’t let more than a second pass before she says,  “I love you, too.”  
  
Not a day goes by that they don’t remind each other, but it’s not until _one hundred thirty-three_ that they’re laying in Kara’s bed on a Saturday evening, lips kiss-swollen and still hungry, when Kara says it and Lena responds, _show me_.  
  
They lay tangled in soft sheets and each other afterwards. Kara’s strong arms encircle Lena, whose back is flush against her front.  
  
They stay quiet for a time, then Kara asks, “When did you know I was Supergirl?”  
  
Lena is taken aback by the question, because even though she knows Kara knows that she knows, she didn’t expect her to be so direct about it. “When you saved me in the helicopter. I never forget a face,” she said, “and I met you before. When you came to my office with Clark.”  
  
“Why didn’t you say anything?”  
  
Lena looks over her shoulder and then turns in Kara’s arms, so she can see at her better. She takes a minute to think of how she wants to put this, because she wants to be honest but she’s afraid that it might come out wrong and she doesn’t want to ruin the afterglow. Kara’s glasses have long been discarded, and Lena reaches out to cup the side of Kara’s face. Kara leans into the other woman’s touch, and waits for Lena to speak.  
  
“My whole life is public news. I can understand wanting to keep at least one thing for yourself,” she says. “At first, I wanted you to tell me. I thought maybe you didn’t trust me but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that maybe it wasn’t about me.”  
  
Kara chokes up a little at Lena’s truthfulness. “Lena, I did want to you tell you. I promise. It’s just, no one else gets it. It’s _exhausting_ holding myself to superhero standards around everyone all the time. But you, I feel so at peace when I’m with you, because I can be myself and that’s enough. I love being Supergirl, really I do. But sometimes I want to be Just Kara. It means a lot to me that I can do that with you.”  
  
Lena blushes as she recalls the earlier days in their relationship when she was hurt by Kara not telling her. “I like being around you, Kara. No matter what name you go by.”  
  
Their conversation is revisited a month later on a bright Sunday morning. The dust is playing in the sunbeams that escape through Kara’s curtains while the two most powerful women in National City are playing with each others’ hands. They lay facing each other, naked except for the happiness in their hearts and the sheet over their bodies, when Kara blurts, “Kara Danvers isn’t my real name.”  
  
Lena smiles and says, “You were adopted. Of course it’s not.”  
  
Kara feels a little dumb, but clarifies, “Zor-El.”  
  
She has the brunette’s undivided attention now. “What was that?”  
  
“Kara Zor-El,” she states. “That’s my name. The one that was given to me back on Krypton.”  
  
Lena kisses her girlfriend’s knuckles and murmurs, “it’s a beautiful name.” Kara agrees with a nod.  
  
She talks about her home planet for a while, about how different it was there, how the colors seemed brighter there than they do on Earth, and what her family was like, and how some nights she lets herself miss it instead of reminding herself that she can never go back. She cries a little, Lena holds her while she does and then kisses the tears drying on her cheeks.  
  
“Tell me something?”  
  
Lena isn’t sure what to say at first, what could compare with a lost world, but then starts telling Kara about her time as a schoolgirl. About how she had to learn to navigate through the social hierarchy. How she was abysmal at it.  
  
“I keep track of how many times I meet people. Everyone, actually.”  
  
Kara is stunned. “Why do you… do that?” There’s no judgement, just a desire to understand Lena better.  
  
Lena rolls onto her back and stares at the ceiling, arms folded over the fabric across her chest. “So I know when to expect them to leave. There’s a range, of when.” She ventures a look at Kara, whose head is now propped up on her elbow, watching her. “Besides. If you can’t quantify things, how can you possibly know what’s important to you?”  
  
“Well.” Kara disagrees with the sentiment. She takes pause before answering with a decisive, “I have no idea how many times I’ve kissed you, but I know that it’s my favorite thing. That’s important to me.” There is a thick silence as Lena considers her words. She shifts again so that she’s facing her best friend, who less than a year ago was a complete stranger. Sea green eyes search soft baby blues, and they find flecks of gray and an infinite pool of tenderness reflecting back. Kara’s eyes flutter shut as Lena leans forward and places her lips on the smooth skin of Kara’s forehead. She holds them there until Kara asks, “Out of curiosity, I mean, you don’t have to tell me, but how many times? For us?”  
  
Lena smiles and scoots to cuddle into her girlfriend and rest her cheek in the crook of Kara’s neck. “Including Supergirl saving me or excluding?”  
  
Kara breathes out a short laugh, “Including.”  
  
“One hundred seventy-four.” They lay in comfortable silence, listening to each other’s breathing and lulling into a light sleep.  
  
“Lena,” Kara’s voice is soft, but sure. Lena croaks out a _hmm?_ in response. “You can stop counting now. I’m not going anywhere.”  
  
Lena holds the woman she loves tighter and basks in the feeling of never wanting to let go. She decides then that she doesn’t care if she ever gets good at making friends— she found one that loves her anyway, and that’s more than enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Lena’s a huge crybaby & Kara’s favorite form of affection is giving forehead kisses and you can fight me if you don’t agree. 
> 
> Thanks for reading :-) come say hi at dankaroo-writes on tumblr


End file.
